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Sarina Damen DISLIKES this book

I spent six years researching my book which was published in 1992 on health and diet, and since then have continued my studies into nutrition and healthy living. I can only say that it is well-accepted that eating a balanced vegetarian diet lowers the chance of developing heart disease, obesity; bowel, colon, stomach, and pancreatic cancers; and most degenerative ailments, all of which are the most common causes of human deaths. Interesting does not mean factual. Albert Einstein, Leonardo da Vinci, Plato, Aristotle, Albert Schweitzer, George Bernard Shaw, are just some of the great minds who chose to eat vegetarian fare. Vegetarians are in wise, and healthy, company.

Amina Jaspar LIKES this book

The comments by Linda Cooper (see first review) are in my opinion unwarranted. I have just read The Vegetarian Paradox and found it totally revealing and very interesting. It has opened my eyes to the possibility that my vegetarian diet is not healthy and that consuming meat and fish is not the solution. To say that the free ebook does not explain the reasons for many of its claims is ridiculous. There may or may not be a “fat gene”, but Linda Cooper misses the point. Whether or not you have the fat gene, there are things you can do in life to avoid obesity. South Asian women have a much higher incidence of obesity, and the vast majority of obese South Asian women are vegetarian (I know because I am one of them). Every claim in the ebook is backed up by quoted research and published studies. This is one of the most interesting free ebooks I have read in a long time, and it has stimulated me into wanting to know more. It is perfectly valid for a free ebook to mention further sources, links, etc., and it is pathetic for Linda Cooper to complain about this.

Peter LIKES this book

Linda Cooper must have a bee in her bonnet. This is a great ebook, full of interesting information. The evidence is well presented and backed up by quoted references. I am semi-vegetarian, and I will now look into estrogen dominance as a result of reading the ebook. Everybody should see this ebook.
Peter

Russell Eaton LIKES this book

The comments by Linda Cooper are perplexing to say the least. I will briefly take her points one by one.
1. To say that the book is full of fallacious information is, of course, complete nonsense. Every claim in the book is backed up by published research and quoted in the book. The general contention that “Asians tend to gain weight in their abdominal areas because they are genetically predisposed to this” is totally unproven. There is no research showing that any particular race or culture is genetically predisposed to gain weight in the abdomen. You gain excess weight in the abdomen because of environmental and lifestyle factors. You get diabetes and obesity for the same reasons. A recent study into why Indians have more diabetes concluded that “The reasons for the findings are not entirely clear, but differences in body fat levels and body fat distribution may play a role.” (source: Dr. Reena Oza-Frank, Emory University, Journal Diabetes Care). Hundreds of studies show that fatter people get more diabetes. Many Indians/Asians pursue a lifestyle (poor diet, etc) that gives them excess body fat. This in turn increases the risk of diabetes.
2. Linda Cooper says that “estrogen dominance is not exclusively vegetarian in nature...and to claim that vegetarianism makes one prone to estrogen dominance is misleading”. The free ebook “The Vegetarian Paradox” makes it perfectly clear that the vegetarian diet predisposes people to estrogen dominance because of certain factors in the vegetarian diet. The book does not deny (or even address) other issues which contribute to estrogen dominance as this is beyond the scope of the book. But it does not follow that the book is in any way misleading. In the book “The Foolproof Diet” I fully examine the many factors that contribute to estrogen dominance and I provide evidence showing that the vegetarian diet contributes to estrogen dominance more than any other kind of diet.
3. There is indeed much evidence to support the benefits of a vegetarian lifestyle, and this is fully addressed in the free ebook. The comments that the free ebook is just “a way to take money” are nonsensical.

Linda Cooper

This book is full of fallacious information, and does not explain the reasons for many of its claims. For instance, it does not address the fact that the higher incidence of heart disease among Indian vegetarians in the UK and elsewhere is also due to the fact that Asians tend to gain weight in their abdominal areas, which make them a greater risk for heart disease, and Asians are genetically predisposed to adapt to the region’s frequent famines, a disposition that they developed over many generations. Now, with an overabundance of food, their bodies are finding it difficult to make a metabolic U-turn, resulting in high insulin intolerance, with accompanying raised levels of diabetes and obesity. The gene is yet to adapt to the surplus food state. All of these factors, can be attributed to the adoption of a "Western" lifestyle, much different from their traditional way of life.
Estrogen dominance is not exclusively vegetarian in nature, and in fact beef is routinely injected with artificial hormones.
There are vegetables that contain such hormones (soy for example) and other vegetables that counter the hormones ( (ie. Broccoli) There are also many environmental factors which contribute to estrogen imbalance (plastics, surfactants, nail polish, and even water to name a few), so his claim that vegetarianism makes one prone to 'estrogen dominance" is misleading as it does not address many other contributing factors.
There is much evidence to support the benefits of adopting a vegetarian lifestyle, but as with everything, proper research needs to be done to make lifestyle choices as beneficial as possible. This book is just a lead in to another fad "diet book" , which is nothing more than a way to take money from those desperate enough to waste it on something that won't do anymore for them than their own common sense.